Disciples Stole Jesus' Body?

April 9th, 2026
by Lance Waldie

Matthew 28:11-15 Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all that had happened. 12 And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the soldiers, 13 and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ 14 And if this should come to the governor’s ears, we will win him over and keep you out of trouble.” 15 And they took the money and did as they had been instructed; and this story was widely spread among the Jews, and is to this day.

After the women departed the scene, Matthew flashes back to the tomb and the guards whom he had previously said were shaking from fear and who had become like dead men as a result (v. 4), perhaps having fallen unconscious. Without describing how long it took them to get their wits about them or what actually happened to them, Matthew simply says that “some of the guard” (indicating that the “guard” was plural) went into Jerusalem (indicating that the tomb was outside the city walls). The soldiers then “reported to the chief priests all that had happened.”

Assuming these guards were Roman soldiers (cf. v. 12), for Jewish temple police would hardly have feared Pilate, it is striking that they came to the Jewish priests and not their Roman superiors. They knew they would be in deep trouble with Pilate, so, knowing that the chief priests had some influence over him, they smartly went to them instead of their superiors. After all, the chief priests had already induced Judas to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, convinced Pilate to have Him crucified, and persuaded him to place a Roman guard at the tomb. So the soldiers put their trust in the hands of the Jews hoping that they would concoct another lie about Jesus to save their necks. And concoct a lie they did! Though the soldiers would be in trouble for having fallen asleep while on watch, the chief priests paid them to tell this story to Pilate. That is what people do who cannot allow Jesus to be Lord over their lives. Though they know the truth, they concoct a lie so that they do not have to submit to the truth.

Matthew’s previous depiction of the guard as being “like dead men” might mean they were unconscious. If so, what exactly could they have told the chief priests? If they had fallen unconscious out of fear, were they rendered unconscious before or after Jesus’ resurrection, the earthquake, and the angel’s appearance? Matthew does not elaborate, so it is not known exactly what they told the chief priests. What is known is that Jesus was no longer in the tomb, and His whereabouts were unknown. Now without a body to guard, they could only confess their failure.

Instead of just admitting that Jesus was the Christ, the chief priests had already made up their minds not to admit to the truth, in spite of the evidence before them. After the Council of chief priests had conferred together, they decided that another lie was the best course of action, for one lie always begets another. But in order to foist that lie upon the Romans, they bribed the soldiers with money to tell a tall tale about how the 11 disciples came in the night and stole Jesus’ body from the tomb as they slept. This lie was the very one the Jews were trying to prevent in the first place, and it is why they summoned Pilate to place a guard at His tomb (27:64). For the “large sum of money” the soldiers received from the Jews, they would have to admit that they fell asleep while on duty, a crime punishable by death. But the chief priests promised to “win [Pilate] over” and keep them “out of trouble,” probably with another bribe.

The soldiers accepted the offer, and the lie permeated throughout Israel from AD 33 to the time Matthew penned his Gospel, somewhere around AD 60—“and to this day.” The Jewish people were all too willing to believe this lie—anything that pointed to Jesus not being the Messiah, Matthew’s motif throughout his Gospel. And it is “to this day” that the Jews continue to believe this, rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as their long-awaited Messiah, the Christ.

Food For Thought
Can you imagine the disciples, whose leader (Peter) denied even knowing Christ when a little girl asked Him, being so bold as to stand up to Roman soldiers and attempt to steal Jesus’ body? The disciples were not the kind of men to do such at that time. They were in no frame of mind to steal Jesus’ body. But even if they did, how can one explain the fact that of the Eleven, knowing that they stole the body of Jesus, later went out and died for their faith? It is true that people die for a lie every day, but people don’t willingly die for a lie if they know it’s a lie. There are way too many difficulties with the stolen body theory to use it as an explanation for the empty tomb. The disciples were not transformed into courageous men until they had actually seen the risen Lord Jesus and had been filled with the Holy Spirit. So it wasn’t the empty tomb that did it for them (cf. John 20:8-9); it was the appearance of Jesus Himself.